Weighing in at a never before weight class starting at 155Lbs, Stephanie Torres . Yup Never been this big, oh wait yes I have been! Twice to be exact, during my pregnancies 35 and 40 years ago. What happened? Life, Love, Food, Injury, Fear, Depression, Being Overwhelmed, Anxiety, Dessert and just plain falling into a Rut! Ruts are funky, they can spiral out of control, and you can lose grip what you have held so dear. For me it truly has been a life time of Running and Exercise. Now I am putting this all behind me and moving forward on a new journey. A journey back to fitness.

First,I was accepted into the 2015 TCSNYCMarathon which means 5 – 6 months of consistency, which I am lacking. I started my running back up in May, very slow going but I am getting a relatively solid foundation, I can now run up to 4 – 5 miles no problem. I do need to increase the mileage, do regular weekly track workouts, strength, core exercises and lots of stretching.

Secondly, Jim and I volunteered for the Santa Barbara Triathlon and I kept saying I am going to do that one of these years. Well this is my year. I entered a contest in the Santa Barbara Independent to Win and Entry Fee and Three Months of Training with KillerBFitness! Pretty Sweet, yah! I will be training on the bike with the group and track workouts. by July get back with the Santa Barbara Running and Racing group for additional training, they are a pretty awesome group of people. Swimming, I got a Reef and Run season pass but here is the clincher, I haven’t swam in many moons. First swim was last Thursday night, and I felt I look liked a large seal in a nice red bathing suit with arms and legs! What a mess! I’ll share that story another day, pretty Fn’ Funny.

So this week I’ll go to Los Banos Pool, AKA “The Plunge”, and start with some swim lessons. Stay true to my goals and plans to continue to be a more fit me. Oh and I am now at 153Lbs. I have so much to lose.

Jessica Mitford took on the American funeral industry, the California Department of Corrections, and the Ku Klux Klan, but it was her 1970 exposé of The Famous Writers School which led to Time calling her “The Queen of the Muckrakers.” And if a courageous editor hadn’t reversed his decision to kill her story, it might never have happened.

Mitford had been aware of The Famous Writers School’s existence for some time. Anyone who was a frequent reader of newspapers, books or magazines would have seen its ever-present advertisements, inviting aspiring writers to cut out and apply for the free aptitude test. While Mitford was suspicious, she didn’t have anything concrete until her lawyer husband took on a new client.

Bob Treuhaft was approached by a 72-year old widow, living on Social Security, who had cleaned out her bank account to make a down-payment to The Famous Writers School. On the…

I’m In! After 5 years of entering the NYC Marathon Lottery I’ve finally been chosen. Now the training commences. My foot is feeling good, I just need to be careful and pay attention to any of the pain. Hotel rooms are booked additional sightseeing plans in place and my sister will be meeting me there. So another week of fun and hard work will be at my feet.

Cleaning can be killing your family.

I will be watching this and more than likely making changes to the products I purchase for house keeping needs.

I love the mission of “The Human Experiment” documentary, which encourages viewers to take control of the toxic chemicals in our environment and #switchtosafer. I blogged about it way back when the trailer launched online and the film started racking up awards on the festival circuit, so when I learned that “The Human Experiment” was set to launch nationwide this April, I knew I had to get involved. Want to join me? Help spread the word about “The Human Experiment” and you could win a trip for two to Los Angeles to see the premiere!With pressure mounting on Congress to pass meaningful toxic chemical reform, there could not be a better time to take action.

1. Commit to an exercise plan:🏊
write it out what I want to achieve
write it on a paper calendar.
Make the goals small and achievable

As time goes on increase the fitness goal.
Weight loss goal a whopping 25 lbs
2. Juice 2 x a week with my VitaMix Pro, so excited! 🍓
3. Exclude sugar, white flour products, fried food, pizza, Chinese food, pasta dishes anything with tortillas 😢 it’s temporary I’m pretty certain I can do this for 6 weeks. Oh and no Alcohol until my Birthday and our trip to New York. I will savor that New York Pizza.
4. Already started getting the nooks and crannies organized once a week a specific area of the house, such as the junk drawers, craft area, gift wrap and gift area.
5. Sell nice items I don’t use anymore on a variety of sites.
6. Practicing Spanish using Rosetta Stone
7. Read at least Three Books this year – Any suggestions.
8. Be kind to others
9. Smile often 😃
10. Believe I ca do this!
That’s it for the 1st Three months of the year.
Happy New Year🎉

Today, June 11, 2014 is the start of my first ever juice cleanse. I know our body has its own fully effective functioning mechanisms in place that keep things moving along. But at 50+ and not exercising consistently, nor eating healthy consistently my body needs a reboot! Doing something like this takes more than just picking up a few bottles of juice and drinking them, you have to plan a bit, like take small walks, keep away from the pantry, take up a project you’ve been thinking about. My project is I am sorting through all my family photos’, from both parents. This is a huge under taking. I just got some volunteers to help.

So I am using The Juice Club http://thejuiceclub.com/. The creator and mixologist of The Juice Club, Allison Antoinette has created a tasty variety of juices with super fresh produce and some natural ingredients. It’s 10am and I am starting out with bottle number #1 Radiant Glow chard, kale, spinach and 6 more ingredients. Who would have thought I’d be having vegetables for breakfast? Very green and very good. The bottles are numbered for your convenience. 1:00 stomach is starting to grumble, not use to this, ugh. More to follow through out the day.

What I learned from this experience for myself is to put the goal in writing, have it in front of me (little reminders of what I am doing) have my spouse be a bigger part of the process (he should have been doing this with me) and remind myself (don’t let the hiccups get in the of the progress and the big picture).

I have never been good a following a diet, probably because I had always been active and never felt a need to. The last few years have been quite challenging, becoming complacent (sp) at home, cooking dinner every night, and on nights when it was either too hot or just to tired or lazy order in and not the good stuff. My world and my waist expanded. I realized all too quickly how depressing this was and how it was negating my desire to work harder ( I had become depressed) not knowing it, just thinking I was failing miserably.

I realized as well, that for this to work I needed to look at it like Marathon/Half Marathon training which weren’t going well either. Amidst all this exciting new way of eating, I was suppose to be training, the two would go hand in hand. I was dealing with a terrible broken tooth problem, which started in late February, still dealing with it, and dealing with a foot injury, got that one is just about fixed. Again depression is tough on the mind. All the while still believing I could do this, I proceeded on.

Physician said, at your age “being over 50” keep on running it will help with the depression, eat more of a less carb diet, more fish, poultry, veges, fruits it will help with weight loss. I then told him the diet I was on. Funny how that works. He felt this was a good choice for me. And turns out I have a thyroid problem, correctable by diet, switching up the exercise and a temporary use of medication. Hence no weight loss. Really anything else that can go wrong?

But all the wrongs made it right, finding out more about myself than I’ve allowed myself, for that I am truly grateful to you all.

My biggest and greatest gain from the challenge is to never give up, re-start what you started and know that only good can come from “doing” and not “trying”. My husband is on board, picked him up some workout dvd’s at a garage sale, he does not mind not eating, rice, potatoes and stuff. We had the kids and grandkids clean out the cupboards of all the yucky stuff. Another favorite I’ve learned is I use less coupons at the store and saving some money there too!! Very few coupons for fresh veges, fruits and meats, so now I don’t put in time wasting effort of shopping for junk.

I did not lose alot of weight but gained so much knowledge about myself and how to better take care of myself for a longer life and continued positive lifestyle. That is my prize.

Thank you all for your support, your time and effort, you made this a life changing experience for me.

Woke up put on the news, another drunk driving fatality. I don’t understand how at 50, 40, 30, 20 something’s continue to drive drunk? Do they watch the news? Listen to the radio, know anyone affected by such senseless tragedy. The ones killed were high school teens – don’t know their whole story why they ran into the medium flipped the car over, were they already dead or died upon impact and ejection from the vehicle that hit them. It is all heartbreaking for everyone involved even for the people called to the scene to investigate and see first hand the carnage. I will say a prayer tonight for everyone’s family.